UB is here to stay; get used to it

Published 5:34 pm, Friday, October 26, 2012

It was a somewhat chic crowd of art lovers, 200 of them, maybe, that gathered Thursday night in Bridgeport for the opening of a show of work by Bob Poe, a Los Angeles-based photographer whose equipment of choice is the i-Phone.

They sipped chardonnay and pinot grigio and popped petite crab cakes and other finger food while strolling the gallery.

A guitarist played softly. It was quite nice. Hip and happening. It was in Bridgeport.

In what may have been a mini-piece of Bridgeport history, there actually was a competing art show opening underway at the City Lights Gallery downtown.

Neil Salonen, the university president, spoke briefly. "We want the community to know we're here," he said. And he spoke of the university's commitment to the community.

It is a sad thing for all concerned that Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch has no use for the University of Bridgeport, apparently because of its affiliation with the Professor's World Peace Academy, an off-shoot of the church run by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon. And it may not help that one of the most visible faces of the university is Mary-Jane Foster, who challenged Finch in a Democratic mayoral primary last year, but the mayor needs to get over it.

The PWPA stepped in 1992 and bailed out the University of Bridgeport, which was failing financially and on the verge of closing.

It was with considerable alarm that city leaders considered the prospect of empty, boarded high-rise dormitories and classrooms - a potential squatters' heaven - spread across a deserted campus. It was not a pretty picture.

Today, the school seems to be more than holding its own. Several of the old mansions of Bridgeport industrialists that make up part of the campus are undergoing considerable rehab work.

While Bill Finch is entitled to whatever feelings he may have, it would seem that Mayor Bill Finch needs to swallow some of whatever those feelings are and welcome the University of Bridgeport to the city.

The school's gymnastics team has won the national title several times, most recently in 2012. UB hosted the national tournament. Finch was invited to speak at the opening ceremonies, but did not respond to the invitation, according to Foster.

At Thursday night's reception, City Council president Tom McCarthy was on hand.

Asked if he was play the role of papal nuncio, a delegate sent from Golden Hill to the Land of the Moon, McCarthy said he was there simply as an art lover and president of the city council.

The university sits on some of the choicest property in the city. Seaside Park, with its vistas of Long Island Sound, is, for all practical purposes, part of the university's campus.

The university is a nine-iron away from the boundary of the city's downtown. In an ideal world, the city and the university would be working together on developing a safe corridor between the school and that downtown.

The South End of Bridgeport, which has its loyalists to be sure, is still not exactly a picnic zone. To get to and from the campus requires driving through some blocks that are not, shall we say, so scenic. The other night, for instance, in a scene that only a fever-racked Edward Hopper could have imagined, a lone man sat in a white plastic chair in the parking lot of Seaside Liquors on Iranistan Avenue, his figure and the wall behind him washed white in the blaze of high-intensity security lights above him.

The university doesn't seem to be looking for any handouts from the city. In fact, at Thursday's event the university announced that one Peter Schelfhaudt, of Stamford, had stepped forward with a donation substantial enough to name the art gallery the Schelfhaudt Gallery.

Not only is the university not going away, it's growing. It makes sense that the mayor and Bridgeport City Hall should be embracing it and capitalizing on it.